Abstract [en]

The aim of this paper is to present the project “Media Citizenship and the Mediatization of School: Curricula, Educational Materials, Teachers”(2016-2018; financed by The Swedish Central Bank’s foundation for Humanities and Social Science/Riksbankens Jubileumsfond). Herein mediatization theory is combined with curriculum theory, to develop an understanding of what we call “the media citizen” (social subjects whose critical abilities, historical awareness and inclination for democratic participation are assumed to be media-dependent). The project comprises three sub-studies; covering curricula, education material and teacher’s training, during the period 1962−2016.

In Sweden as well as in many other countries there is today much emphasis on the structural transformation of education through digitalization; which is promoted and implemented by a conglomerate of influential political-economical-pedagogical interests (municipalities, principals, teacher unions, Apple, Google, miscellaneous digitalization apostles) in ventures meant to raise ”digital competence through, e.g. through “one to one” (one computer, lap top etc. per student/teacher) (Grönlund 2013, Hansson 2014), cloud-services, mandatory courses in computer programming, E-learning etc. (cf. SOU 2014:13). Parallel to this, the citizens breaded by the current school system dwell in a globalized online/offline world with smart phones, internet, and social media (Forsman 2014, Boyd 2014, Turkle 2012). Which also influence views on media and information literacy (MIL) and “media citizenship” (c.f. Bagga-Gupta et al. 2013, Mihailidis 2014), Wilson 2011 et.al).

The ongoing digitization has been compared with earlier shifts in the history of literacy (Goody & Watt 1963), and/or shifts between the ”Discourse Networks” of 1800 and 1900 (Kittler 2012). The implied consequences for schooling appear to be significant and the school’s task of reproducing knowledge and common principles over generations is thoroughly challenged (Bourdieu & Passeron 2008).

Still, much of the debate about the digitalization of education is policy-oriented, shortsighted and techno centric, and it shifts between determinism (technology is the basis of all social change) and instrumentalism (technology is in itself neutral). In contrast, this project study the historical impact of the media on the school’s training of what we call “media citizens” by combining mediatization theory with curriculum theory.

Mediatization theory refers to a historical “meta-process” (Krotz 2007) and how all societal spheres (politics, science, religion, etc.) and aspects of everyday life are increasingly influenced by the institutions, technologies, and “logics of the media” (c.f. Lundby 2014, Hepp 2013, Hjarvard 2013, Kaun & Fast 2014). With a few exceptions (Lingard & Rawolle 2015, Breiter 2014, Livingstone 2015) relatively little has has so far been done on the mediatization of education.

It is also striking that mediatization so far has not been addressed much within the wide area of curriculum theory; here "curriculum" carries a wider significance than the specific policy document – referring to the historical, symbolic, material, and scientific conditions under which such documents are designed, as well as the "frame factors" that limit or allow their actualization as teaching (Lundgren 1979/89, 1999; cf. Pinar ed. 2014, Biesta, 2013).

In contrast to much existing discourse on school and media, this project does not suggest normative positions, nor pedagogical MIL-strategies for classroom; instead, it is motivated by an ambition to develop mediatization theory in relation to the field of education and thus contribute to the ongoing discussion about MIL and media and literacy, in Sweden and other countries, by adding an informed, critical and historical perspective.